Last evening I went to Johnston's2 to tea & spent an hour with him before coming on here.
We talked of you & discussed the probability of the arrival of the mail &c. Just after tea your postcard
of the 18th3 arrived & was greeted by cheers from us both. We were heartily
pleased to receive it, & to read its
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cheering words. I made a hasty facsimile of it to bring home, which now lies before me.
I am very glad to note that you were recovering from the effects of "the fearful unprecedented
three days hot spell" & were apparently in such good spirits. And blessings on the "two
dear little boys"4 whose "delicious chatter" at the time of writing freshened & delighted
you. As I get older I appreciate more & more the primal freshness & sweetness of children,
& their innocent
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gladness & beauty. (Some little beauties near here.) I hope the two in question may retain
these qualities through life, with graver ones added, as children of yours.
I found Johnston pretty well recovered from his accident, of which I believe he has told you.
The parcel of "Good Bye's"5 & portraits not yet received, but will probably come next mail. I will notify you on its arrival.
I expect to receive Lippincott's6 tomorrow or the day
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following.
The sultry weather of last week has passed, & cooler delightful weather set in. Has been a beautiful day today (though occasionally threatening) & the evening has been especially lovely, with the most beautiful roseate sky & clouds.
The Revd S. Thompson7—minister of the little Unitarian
chapel at Rivington (built 1703—originally, and still nominally Presbyterian) called
here this evening on his way home, & I walked to Rivington with him
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I never saw a more beautiful evening, & the charmingly idyllic country looked its best.
The air was sweet & calm, but with a just felt breeze,—a slight pensive
mist half veiling the distant landscape. I was quite loathe to return indoors, but I wanted
to send you a few lines & it was getting late.
Thompson (an elderly, white bearded man, with healthy fresh complexion, clear honest
grey eyes, & cordial friendly grasp & speech) always enquires the latest news about
you,
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& honours you highly—& more & more as he knows you better. I spoke of
writing & offered to convey his regards to you, & he seemed very pleased & quite
affected by it. He thought it might seem "presumption," but he was glad to send you his warmest
regards & best wishes.
Just before he came I had been reading in the 1855 edition of L. of G. My copy has a few
press notices pasted in at the end, & I read some of these again.
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("United States Review"—"American Phrenological Journal" & Brooklyn Daily Times."8)
I wondered again who had written these.—It seems strange to me that since such
appreciative notices appeared so soon after the first appearance of L. of G. your recognition
should have proceeded so slowly. But it is very certain, & will be all the more
complete & passionate because of the delay.
But I must close.
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With constant love & prayerful God speed
Wednesday evg July 1st Lippincott (July)9 does not contain item expected. I hope the reasons for this are quite satisfactory, & that no slight upon you is involved in it.
I write this in a field on my way to one of our buildings some 7 miles out of Bolton. Beautiful morning, grass in its full glory (haymaking just commencing in a few fields) a willow-wren singing its plaintive song close by, & a lark shaking down its ecstatic carol from the sky oerhead.10
Correspondent:
James William Wallace
(1853–1926), of Bolton, England, was an architect and great admirer of
Whitman. Wallace, along with Dr. John Johnston (1852–1927), a physician in
Bolton, founded the "Bolton College" of English admirers of the poet. Johnston
and Wallace corresponded with Whitman and with Horace Traubel and other members
of the Whitman circle in the United States, and they separately visited the poet
and published memoirs of their trips in John Johnston and James William Wallace,
Visits to Walt Whitman in 1890–1891 by Two
Lancashire Friends (London: Allen and Unwin, 1917). For more
information on Wallace, see Larry D. Griffin, "Wallace, James William (1853–1926)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).